I’ve wanted to do a shuttle trip on the Passaic River from the Great Falls down a few miles. About a decade ago I spoke with a couple guys who told me they had caught and released a huge pike there and several big smallmouths. This section of river has some of the largest gradient drop on the entire river. Now that I’m trying to do more fishing closer to home it was time to check this area out. I scoped it out and Bill thought it would be fun and joined me this past Saturday. We dropped off Bill’s Suburban at a park in Fair Lawn and then proceeded to our launch point. We put in the kayaks about 100 yards below the falls on the north side of the river. There’s a parking area there. We headed up to the falls to fish there a bit and then we’d float down to the take out and fish along the way. On a small spinnerbait I lost something small as it jumped from the water. It looked like a panfish but the jump was more like a smallie. While it looked prime at the big pool below the falls we didn’t catch anything. I’ve heard its 35’ deep there but we didn’t have a fishfinder along. After working the area we headed down river. There were some good rapids and they were fun. We didn’t catch much but it was an interesting trip. Under one bridge, 10’ above the water was a lot of trapped logs and branches. At another bridge there was a huge log trapped equally as high off the water. It showed how high the water has gotten at times. Bill landed the only fish, a small smallie.

At the take out there was a huge buck. We were only about 15’ from it but it took off as soon as it saw us. It had at least 10 points which makes sense as there isn’t any hunting in the middle of a city and no predators.

While the fishing was disappointing that’s fishing. My last freshwater excursion on the Rockaway River was also very slow and that was an area where I’ve had 100 fish days. So I’m not sure if it’s a function of a lousy period or…….. It was fun and I want to fish it again. Next time I might try bait; hopefully with better success. The next part of the river I want to hit is the Dundee Lake area. There are huge schools of carp there and I want to try sight fishing with the fly rod. Hasta

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